After 300 years, St. Wenceslaus reclaims his lance in Vienna
In Czechia, many statues commemorate the Czech patron saint St. Wenceslaus. However, an important depiction of him can also be found in the iconic St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna – and now, after more than 300 years, it is finally complete again.
The statue of St. Wenceslaus in Vienna’s St. Stephen’s Cathedral dates back to the mid-15th century. At some point, however, one of the Czech patron saint’s key attributes was lost. For 80 years, the statue held a shield in one hand, while the other – once grasping a lance – remained empty. A sword was placed in the saint’s outstretched hand as a replacement in 1708, but that too disappeared in the 1940s. Now, after more than 300 years, St. Wenceslaus has finally regained his lance – thanks to Leo Ge, a retired Czech living in Vienna.
“I’m a bit of a historian myself, and when I saw the statue here, it somehow bothered me that St. Wenceslaus was, so to speak, incomplete,”
explains Ge, describing why he decided to initiate the statue’s restoration – a process that would take five years to complete. At first, his efforts met with little interest when he approached art historians and members of the clergy. Yet he eventually found support from the Czech ambassador in Vienna, Jiří Šitler, who described the process:
“We got in touch with the priest of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, Mr. Faber, to see whether it was possible to have St. Wenceslaus’s lance restored. Once the cathedral gave its approval, we turned our attention to funding and contacted the Vienna Insurance Group.”
Thanks to this collaboration, the statue now holds its lance once again. The new lance was modelled on one held by St. Wenceslaus in Prague’s St. Vitus Cathedral, but the Vienna statue differs slightly. While St. Wenceslaus is usually depicted with a shield in his left hand and a lance in his right, at St. Stephen’s Cathedral the positions are reversed. This change was necessary because of the statue’s placement directly next to a column.
The statue is not the only trace of Czech heritage in Vienna’s cathedral. For example, one of the stained-glass windows depicts the double-tailed Czech lion, and on one of the steeples, we can find Czech King Charles IV and his wife, Blanche of Valois. The priest Nikolaus Krasa, who blessed the statue of St. Wenceslaus at its unveiling, emphasized the significance of honouring the shared history between Czechs and Austrians, noting that it reflects a close cultural and personal bond.
To Ge, handing St. Wenceslaus back his lance was about more than just changing a seemingly minor detail.
“This isn’t for me — it’s for Vienna, for St. Stephen, and for St. Wenceslaus, because they are the ones who matter most.”
